jamaica

Bill Morris was born in Bombay, Manchester, Jamaica in 1938 and grew up in Cheapside, attending school at the Moravian Church in Mizpah. He left Jamaica to join his widowed mother in Handsworth, Birmingham, England in 1954, and in 1957 he married a young Jamaican woman, Minetta. She had also been born in Jamaica, in a neighbouring village, and was now a nurse. They had two children, Clyde and Garry. Minetta died of breast cancer in 1990.

Of his early years in Jamaica he said: "They were influenced by a strong sense of social justice which was developed in the local community where the adults took responsibility for all the children. We received support and care as well as guidance in our behaviour from the adults. The most influential individual in my life was my grandmother. She never took 'no' for an answer, and she saw no challenge as unachievable. Her attitude was simply 'everyone can do it'. So you did!"

Cricket was his abiding passion; he is a keen follower of the game and is now a Director of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Bill Morris visits Jamaica regularly and for ten years was Chancellor of the University of Technology.
He is Patron of the Area Youth Foundation in Jamaica and of the Jamaica Basic Schools Foundation in England.
In 2002 he opened a new Health Centre in Bombay, his birthplace, for which he had organised funding from British Airways with matching Jamaican Government funding. He persuaded Ford New Holland to provide a tractor for the farmers' co-operative in St Elizabeth, and

Bill Morris welcomes The Duke
of Edinburgh to the University
of Technology, Jamaica.

with his encouragement, the Ford Motor Company converted one of their mini-buses for young people with disabilities in Kingston. He also supported the work of the Red Cross after the 2004 hurricane.

In October 2002 Bill Morris was awarded the Order of Jamaica by the Jamaican Government for services to international trade unionism.